


Deductions in fashion

by Winxhelina



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Female John Watson, Female Sherlock Holmes, Femlock, First Meetings, Gen, Lolita Fashion, Lolita Meetups, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-14 17:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14140815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winxhelina/pseuds/Winxhelina
Summary: One is a consulting detective in London who can tell you everything there is to tell about you from your dress and shoes alone. The other a doctor recently returned to London after a traumatic incident. Both are fashionable young woman into Japanese street fashion.





	Deductions in fashion

**Author's Note:**

> I know a fair bit about Lolita fashion I think, but I am no real expert of experts, if you see something here that you think is so very wrong, feel free to complain about it in the comments. I tried to make it seem somewhat realistic.

Jon looked herself over in the mirror and sighed. She looked... nice. She didn’t look like she was too old for this, but a part of her worried she might be. Another part of her told her she was being ridiculous, what with being barely over 30 and being concerned about being too old.

Yet, she hadn’t been to a meet-up in years. She was still interested in the fashions and regularly browsed the web for nice dresses she couldn’t afford, but life had gotten to hectic at one point and she had grown distant with her fashionable friends. But now she was no longer busy, now she had nothing to do all day, but to look for a cheaper flat and a job and feel sorry for oneself. And her therapist had told her that she should take time to pick up some hobbies and this was her hobby. Had been for many years.

Still, it didn’t help that all of her former friends had mostly left Lolita and now had babies and worked as accountants or make-up artists or interior designers or in one case, as a construction worker.

The girls who had gathered in the park didn’t look younger older than her and that made her feel a little better. Most of them were Sweet Lolitas, their pastel wigs easy to spot in the greenery of spring in London’s parks. It was nice. They seemed nice. One girl started chatting with her and introduced her to a couple of other girls. She asked if this Jon her first meet up and she explained that she had been away from London and it’s communities for a while. They chatted and giggled and then started to talk about Mira’s new boyfriend and how he wasn’t very supportive of her pastime and meeting up with loads of girls to hang around in parks, looking pretty.

From there on it got into Mira’s personal life and – Sarah’s? Was her name Sarah? Either way Jon was beginning to feel a little left out, almost like she was eavesdropping. She was looking around for another group she could easily join in on without feeling like she was interrupting, when she noticed her.

There, in the shade of a tree sat a beautiful Gothic Lolita, alone the bench, wearing a black dotted Angelic Pretty dress and reading some Japanese fashion magazine.

One of the girl’s noticed her staring: “That’s Sherlock. Honestly, I don’t even know why she comes to meet-ups. She never talks with anyone and she’s kind of mean whenever she does.”

Jon didn't really appreciate gossip, always ready to give the one gossiped the benefit of the doubt: “How do you mean? Maybe she’s just not social.”

“Nope. She’s mean and kind of creepy, not only does she knows the names and release dates of like every release ever, which actually is kind of cool, but she’s like a witch or something.”

Jon snorted. She didn’t believe in that sorts of things. Witches, mediums, whatever you called them. 

“She can tell things about you. Just by looking at you. Last week, she told Angela she was thinking of leaving Lolita, but she still had doubts. Apparently she had already sold all of her BodyLine and off-brand things, but now when it came to selling the more expensive things she always took pride in, she was having second thoughts. Then she said she should just give Jane her Cherry Rendezvous dress, because that’s like her dream dress and Angela never wears it anyways, because she doesn’t want to rub it into Jane’s face that she has it. All that and she hardly ever even talks to us!”

“Maybe she’s a really good listener?” Jon offered, skeptical. They were exaggerating surely.

“I wouldn’t go near her,” Sally sais: “Unless you want to be treated like garbage. She thinks she’s better than anyone else just because she has a lot of brand. Big deal. Most of us do.”

Jon didn’t. She had some, but not loads. So she just stayed there quietly.

The conversation moved on to some convention Jon hadn’t been to and then back to Sarah’s boyfriend and Jon felt old and out of place and a bit bored so she moved away, towards the girl who seemed to feel out of place as well, still reading the same magazine, looking kind of sad and alone in Jon’s opinion.

“Mind if I join you?”

She looked up for a moment and wordlessly gathered up her dress to make room. Jon’s petticoat was quite large as well, so together they took up most of the park bench.

Jon watched the other girls chat in their groups. This lifestyle just wasn’t for her. Not anymore.

“Oh, come on, you’re not that old,” the girl next to her scoffed.

For a moment Jon wondered if she had spoken out aloud, but no, she certainly hadn’t. She looked at Sherlock, confused: “I’m sorry?”

“You’re not too old to wear nice clothes you like, just because you’re bored when you hear Sarah talk about her stupid boyfriend Nate, only having just met Sarah and all. You’re not here to talk boys anyways. You don’t even have a boyfriend. You’re here to talk brand and dresses and – maybe Lacemarket and Facebook second-hand listings, seeing as you spend most of your waking hours there. And then there’s of course your traumatic experiences in the army, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t like to talk about that.”

Jon’s mouth was open, she was gaping at Sherlock: “… How can you possibly know about that? You’ve only just met me!”

Sherlock’s eyes brightened: “I was right then? I must admit it was a bit of a shot in the dark. All I really could tell from looking at you was that you’re a doctor, a former surgeon, who was into Lolita fashion some years ago and got back into it now, but you’re doubting if you should, because you think you’re too old.”

Jon snorted: “Okay, this is my first meet up in a while. No one I know is here. Who could have possibly told you all that? Did you internet-stalk me or something?”

Sherlock snorted: “I simply observed and not from the Internet. Simply by looking at you.”

Jon seemed skeptical, but let it be: “So... what about you? How did you got into the fashion?”

“It was for a case. One of the suspects was into the fashion and I had to look deeper into it. I had always – had expensive taste in clothes. I loathe the idea of a shopping day with one’s BFF’s, but I don’t underestimate the power of the right kind of clothing. Plus most people don’t realize that, but you can tell so much about a person based on their clothes.”

“You’re – a police officer?” Jon put in. She supposed that made sense. She herself turned to Lolita fashion partly because she was tired of being in a lab coat or hospital garnets all day, or more recently, in the clothes of an army doctor.

“I’m a consulting detective. The only one in the world. I consult the Yard with the cases they can’t solve.”

Jon snorted: “The police doesn’t consult amateurs.”

Sherlock looked affronted. She took a quick moment to look Jon over, before launching into an explanation, barely taking a moment to breathe: “The dress you’re wearing – it was listed on Lacemarket a some weeks ago, ridiculously cheap, because it was posted by some clueless American that doesn’t realize that a tear in a fabric such as this can be easily be sown together and the dress can look nearly flawless. It sold in mere minutes, which tells me that you must be browsing Lacemarket every waking moment to have spotted it. Of course, you could have just gotten incredibly lucky, but then again that headpiece of yours was also a bargain posted I think some days before. They are both Royal Melty Chocolate ones so you must be around there a lot to have found a matching barrette and dress in only the month you’ve been back in London. I’ll get to that in a moment. So, you spend a lot of time online, looking for a bargain online, looking for items that match well, looking for a full coord. Could be that this is your first outfit and you don’t want to spend a lot of money, but no, you don’t have a lot of money. You love this fashion. You’re not buying replicas or trying to go on Ebay trying to get something cheap. You know your way around. You’ve done this for a while. And then there are your shoes – very old school, yet you don’t dress old school, could be a coincidence, but I think you haven’t been into the fashion for a while. Especially considering you’ve been abroad as a surgeon. A fact which can be told from the way you stitched together the tear in the dress. You did it by hand. You have old school clothes, which you should sell if you don’t want to wear them, they could get you money you can use  to get more new stuff and possibly, on a more practical level, pay the rent, but you don’t want to wear them, because they are “old” school and you already feel old enough. You’re being ridiculous by the way. I wouldn’t say you’re over 30 unless it was glaring obvious you have a PhD. Can’t be a doctor without one.  
The fact that you have so much free time and so little money that you spend every waking moment trying to grab bargain tells me that you are currently unemployed. So the question now is, what happened to this beautiful young surgeon, that would have left her unemployed. Which brings us to the way you hold yourself, Lolitas are supposed to be all pretty and ladylike, yet you, you stand like a soldier. You consciously try not to, but it still shows, don’t worry, no one, but me would have noticed. You stand like a soldier; you flinch away from the touch of others. You applied to be an army doctor, to help the wounded on the battlefield, however you soon realized how difficult it is for a woman in the army. Not because you’re not strong mentally or physically, but because some people can’t seem to appreciate all the good you do and think female doctors are there to be goggled and grabbed at. You tried to assert yourself, possibly, but it didn’t help. I’d like to say you saw these ungrateful bastards weren’t worth your time, but I’m not sure. So you came back to London. A stupid choice considering you have no money to live on and no job, but you lived here before and couldn’t bare to leave. You seemed to be seeing a therapist so maybe there was some compensation, but everything from this point is just a guess,” Sherlock took a deep breath and clearly braced herself for some rude comments.

Jon’s jaw was hanging open: “That’s amazing.”

Now it was Sherlock’s turn to appear shocked: “You think so? I thought perhaps it was insensitive.”

“That too. A bit. But mostly it was amazing.”

Sherlock smiled and nodded towards the group of girls in frilly dresses they had separated from: “They have finally decided on a cafeteria: Seems like they’re going to Maitre Choux on Harrington Road. You should follow. Great éclairs,”

Jon was on the fence about going to some fancy cafeteria on her budget. She looked over to Sherlock and wondered what was keeping her: “If you want to make friends, which I assume you do, I would suggest Mary. She’s the one wearing brown Innocent World dress. She’s sociable and gets along with most girls. You might get along,” Sherlock offered.

“Thanks, but aren’t you coming? Are you in a hurry?”

She seemed to consider for a moment, before picking up her purse: “Not really,” she said and got up.

A little later there was a frightening amount of sweets on the lovely little café table and Jon watched with a watering mouth as Sherlock ate them, while all she let herself have was a cup of tea. Sherlock seemed to notice this and nudged one of the plates towards the girl: “Oh come on. You can’t seriously be expecting me to eat all of this by myself. My brother does envy my ability to eat cake for breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner and not gain weight, but I think I’d be sick.”

“You can hardly expect me to expect of you to buy me food.”

Sherlock hummed and shrugged, she set an éclair down and asked: “So – just how desperate you are to find a flatmate?”

Jon shrugged: “I don’t suppose I would room with a LSD addict, but yeah, pretty desperate. I just don’t have enough money to afford anywhere near decent.”

“I’ve never done LSD. That messes you up real bad. Mostly I stuck to cocaine.”

Jon snorted, thinking Sherlock was joking.

“How do you feel about an eccentric flatmate who occasionally plays the violin, doesn’t talk for days and owns hundreds of frilly dresses. Oh and – sometimes I solve crimes.”

Jon smiled: “Are you looking for a flatmate?”

“I am. With my shopping habits I can barely rent more than a shed in London. In all seriousness through I have a great offer standing for a flat in Baker street and I would like someone to pitch in,” she said, smiling, looking very pleased with herself.

“Baker Street? Listen, I know we are both dressed expensive, but - …”

“She owes me,” Sherlock cut in: “It’s a good offer.”

“Okay,” Jon said slowly: “Yeah. Would be great. We barely know each other, but then again I’m not going to know the people I find online better.”

“I think I know you quite well,” Sherlock said smugly.

“Oh yeah? What’s my name then?” Jon teased.

That seemed to caught Sherlock off guard. She looked at Jon dumbly for a moment and blushed: “I can’t deduce that. I would read it off an ID eventually and find out.”

Jon smiled: “That won’t be necessary. It’s Jon.”

Sherlock smiled: “Is it short for something?”

Jon smiled: “Yes, but I’m not going to tell you what.”

Sherlock’s eyes lit up:”I can work with that. Joan? Johannah? Joanine?”

Jon laughed and assured Sherlock it hadn’t been meant as a challenge, which only seemed to fuel the girl’s interest.

The next day the pair went to Baker Street. The house in question had gorgeous aesthetics as buildings in London generally did and Jon could hardly even imagine even thinking about dreaming of living her.

Jon was wearing one of her old school pieces when she met Sherlock the next day, partly because she didn’t want to wear the same thing twice, partly because coming wearing regular clothes felt out of place and partly because she wanted to prove that she didn’t have a problem with wearing old school.

Sherlock greeted her warmly and with a number of new guesses as to what Jon was short for. After they had spoken to the lovely landlord Mrs. Hudson, who seemed overjoyed that Sherlock had found someone, Jon was unsure if this meant a flatmate, a friend or a lover. They stepped into the living room of their new flat.

Jon didn’t know whether she should focus on the interior of the house itself of the various outfits that were hung around the living room, in, what seemed like an organized chaos of hangers, petticoats, wigheads, accessories, loads of Gothic décor, books and – lab equipment.”

Sherlock noticed Jon looking around and rushed to clean up, before she tripped over something, or rather, move some things to place to place:”I suppose I could clean a bit.”

“This is – very nice. I thought you only dressed in Gothic,” Jon admitted, looking around in awe of the large variation of dresses. It was almost like being in a store. One that was extremely well stocked.

“I dabble in classic and such. Sometimes I buy prints and never even wear them. I just - like to look at them. Plus it pisses my brother off. Always a bonus.”

“It’s gorgeous.”

Sherlock smiled: “I’ll take it, you’ll stay?”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes. There is a part 2. It exists, already partially written on my computer, but given my poor track record with finishing longer fics and the fact that it's a case fic and I am shit at case fics I thought it best to pretend it's a one-shot. If I ever get really hellishly inspired I will write it.


End file.
